Neighbor Kids

One great thing about our new neighborhood is that there are kids everywhere for my kids to play with. They've made some fast friends and it seems like we always have someone over at our house playing.

Yesterday, they were playing outside on the slip n slide with one of the neighbor boys. All of a sudden he burst into the house and said, "Hey, do you guys believe in god?" This caught me a little off guard, but I just looked at him, smiled and said,"No, I don't honey."

I think he was shocked. He has probably never met anyone who doesn't believe in god. After his initial shock, he said, "Well, they found Noah's Ark you know. They just won't let us take pictures of it." I thought about how to respond to this because I don't know if this is something his parents told him or if it's something he heard somewhere else. So, I just said, "Well, I have to have evidence before I believe something."

With that, he closed the door and continued to talk to my kids about it. They came in for dinner awhile later and told me a little about their conversation. They asked him questions like "Who wrote the Bible?" "How do you know?" "Do you think people live after they die?" etc. I guess they weren't satisfied with his answers and he told them that if they don't believe, "you'll go to a bad place when you die where you will be tortured forever!"

I'm not sure how the whole conversation started, but I'm happy that my kids aren't afraid to ask people questions. I've never seen these neighbors go to church, so I'm hoping that the conversation won't freak out the parents...I guess we'll see. At least we've lived here for a couple of months now and the neighbors have had a chance to get to know us before they found out :)

By the way, HAPPY 4th of July!! I began celebrating the freedom we have in this country a few days ago by joining the Freedom From Religion Foundation!! I've been meaning to join for awhile and thought that this would be a great way to celebrate the 4th :)

Treaty of Tripoli; Article 11
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.